


Rituals

by Selenay



Series: Stargate Snippets [3]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-31
Updated: 2003-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack helps Daniel through his post-nightmare ritual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to anyone else who has woken up at a stupid time in the morning, had to read a book/fanzine/watch TV to get rid of the flashbacks and still been reading a book/fanzine/watching TV when the rest of your family wakes up.

Jack always woke up when Daniel had a nightmare, even before they became lovers. If he wondered about it, Daniel always came out with some psychological mumbo-jumbo so Jack had just learned to accept it. Whenever he woke up with the vague sensation that something was wrong, Daniel was awake from a nightmare. He had even called Daniel a couple of times, early in their friendship, when he woke up with that 'wrong' feeling. Most of the time, though, they seemed to unconsciously anticipate the bad nights and found excuses to install Daniel in the guestroom. Now that they shared a bed he had expected the ritual to change but apparently it wasn't going to.

The post-nightmare ritual had begun one night a few weeks after Daniel first returned to Earth, when they had spent most of the evening watching bad disaster movies and Daniel had borrowed the spare room. Jack had woken up with the feeling that something wasn't quite right. He was still not sure why he always woke up. But after a few minutes he had decided to make a quick check around the house and his first target had been the guestroom. Daniel had been sitting up in bed, the room still dark, and the expression on his face still had the power to send cold shivers down Jack's back when he remembered it.

In an oddly calm voice, Daniel had asked, "Could you come back in a minute?"

Of course Jack had tried to stay and help but that had only distressed Daniel further so he eventually left and went back to bed. A few minutes later he had noticed a light shining under his door and heard the soft creak of a floorboard as Daniel went past. That had turned out to be his cue to go downstairs with his friend.

Jack could feel the rigid tension in the body lying less than a foot away but he knew that if he tried to comfort Daniel at the moment it would only scare him. He was still half-caught in the dream state; awake enough to know that it was only a dream but not yet able to separate the dream from reality properly. This was the phase where Daniel was trying to convince himself that whatever had happened in his dream was not real. Spooks, gremlins and dark things still lurked in the corners for Daniel and he could easily lash out if he was startled.

Jack lay on his side and pretended to sleep.

After a while some of the tension leached from Daniel's body and Jack felt him roll over and then heard the click as he turned on the bedside lamp. The faint light barely reached Jack's side of the bed but it was enough to rid Daniel of the lingering fear of the darkness around him. A couple of minutes later the bed shifted as Daniel rolled out and stood up. Jack heard the rustle of cloth and then Daniel's bare feet padding to the door. There was a quiet click as he opened the door, then he slipped out and latched it behind him.

Jack rolled over and opened his eyes. It was always this way and more than anything he wanted to help Daniel. One day he wanted Daniel to roll over, shake him out of his pretend sleep and whisper his name.

_I might as well wish for pigs to fly. Might have more success that way._

The lamp on Daniel's side of the bed barely gave enough light to read by so Jack turned his on and sat up. In a couple of minutes it would be time for him to do his part of the nightmare ritual.

There was a discarded T-shirt balled up in the corner and Jack knew from experience that it would be damp with cold sweat. A drawer was open a crack and Daniel's robe was missing from the hook on the back of the door. Jack made a mental note to turn the heat up when he had a moment.

When he judged that enough time had passed, he threw back the duvet and stood up. A drawer yielded a couple of pairs of thick socks and Jack pulled on one pair and stuffed the other into the pocket of the robe that he grabbed from the hook on the door. Daniel never remembered to take socks with him when he went downstairs. Jack opened the bedroom door and squinted in the bright light. As he had anticipated, all the lights between the bedroom and the kitchen had been turned on as though Daniel still half-expected something to jump out at him from the shadows.

The dining area was empty but there was a spoon and a steaming mug on the table that told Jack that Daniel wanted company. Bright light poured out of the lounge and there was a low hum from the TV set so Jack picked up his spoon and tea and followed the trail.

Daniel was sitting on the sofa, staring at the TV, with a tub of ice cream next to him. Jack tossed the socks on Daniel's lap and sat down next to him. The tea tasted terrible but Jack choked it down anyway and took a drippy spoon of chocolate ice cream to wash away the taste. His mug joined the empty one on the coffee table and Jack nudged Daniel gently.

"Socks?" he prompted.

Daniel finally looked away from the TV screen and smiled faintly at Jack. Wordlessly he put the spoon down, pulled on the socks and then picked up his spoon again and took a bite of sloppy ice cream.

Jack stared at the TV, trying to make sense of what was playing. A tall man with silly curls and an impossibly long scarf was running down a corridor chased by a big black pepper pot.

"What are we watching?" he asked curiously.

"Genesis of the Darleks," Daniel replied, his eyes glued to the screen again.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You have a nightmare and you come down here to watch . . . this?"

"It was this or Jerry Springer."

There was silence for a while as they consumed melting ice cream and watched a wrinkly guy with a blue stone on his forehead explain his dastardly plan. Jack couldn't help being reminded of comic book Nazis as he watched the bad guy's henchmen.

"Wanna talk about it?" he asked when his spoon hit the bottom of the tub.

"Not really," Daniel replied.

"Okay."

The guy with the curls was now agonising over whether to blow something up and Jack looked at Daniel curiously. "Why are we watching this?"

"I watched it when I was doing some research in England. There was something about the central character. He was always trying to do the right thing."

"Sounds like someone I know," Jack said with a small smile.

For the first time, Daniel turned and met Jack's eyes. "I never imagined that I'd be out there trying to make those decisions when I first watched this."

"I don't think any of us did."

They carried one watching the TV and eating the ice cream until Daniel scraped out the last drop. The archaeologist was still silent and brooding, and Jack ached to put his arms around him and hug away the nightmare. Daniel, though, was still radiating 'do not touch me' and Jack knew that the other man wasn't ready yet. Instead he dropped his spoon into the ice cream tub and put the empty tub on the table next to the mugs. After a pause, Daniel added his spoon to Jack's. The TV was now showing the guy with curls and his two companions trying to run away from a couple of black pepper pots.

Under the normal rules they would keep watching TV until either Daniel fell asleep or dawn broke, whichever came first. There would be no mention of the nightmare and no discussion of why they were watching late-night TV. Jack didn't want to play by the normal rules tonight. He wanted something to change. Talking about emotional subjects was never his strong point but he needed to do something or they would keep doing this silent ritual for the rest of their lives.

"I'm usually somewhere dark," Jack said quietly, keeping his eyes on the TV even though he was no longer paying attention to the action. "I can feel the walls . . . I think they're walls . . . around me but I can't see them. I know that if I move, everything will collapse around me and I'll suffocate. There's no sound, just me breathing, and I don't know how I got there. It's just . . . happening, and there's no way I can stop it."

Jack held his breath. There was a long moment when he thought Daniel would ignore him and the opening he was trying to give. Then there was movement next to him as Daniel muted the TV and asked, "What happens next?"

"Sometimes I wake up. Sometimes I move and everything collapses around me, and then I wake up."

They both absorbed that in silence for a while. Jack stole a few glances at Daniel and he could feel the archaeologist do the same. This was the first time had ever talked about his nightmares. Usually he dismissed them with a joke or a threat that he'd have to shoot Daniel if he talked.

"You said 'usually'?" Daniel asked eventually.

Jack shrugged. "That's the recurrent one. I get others - memory replays, mostly, about things I really can't talk about. But that's the one that really gets to me and I have no idea why."

Daniel said nothing for a while and then he picked up the remote and clicked the TV off. He turned to Jack and took his hand, twining their fingers together and watching as though the sight was completely fascinating. Maybe for him, in this moment, it was. Jack could feel the icy cold in his lover's fingers and brought his other hand up to warm them.

"I'm running away from something," Daniel said in a low voice. "I don't know what it is but if it catches up with me . . ." He shuddered. "Sometimes I see eyes glowing in the darkness. Sometimes there is a voice calling my name. Mostly, it's just me running. Eventually I reach the edge of whatever I'm running along and fall off. That's when I wake up."

For the first time, Daniel looked into Jack's eyes and he could read the mixture of fear and embarrassment. Put into words, the dream didn't sound too bad but it would be a completely different matter for someone inside it. Jack knew that there was nothing he could say that would make any difference. Daniel was intelligent enough to know that it was a dream and there was nothing here that was going to get him.

There might be nothing he could say, but Daniel's posture spoke louder than words. He was finally ready for Jack to hold him and the colonel did so. He pulled Daniel towards him and hugged him tightly, rocking him through the shudders as the fear was finally released and then just holding him to warm him up. Eventually Jack loosened his grip but he didn't allow the archaeologist to get far. He kept Daniel snug against him and kissed his hair.

"Better?" he asked.

Daniel nodded and leaned over for a leisurely kiss. "Thank you."

"No problem."

Jack turned his head to look at Daniel. The tension had drained from his face but he still wasn't ready for sleep yet. Nor did he look in the mood for sex, Jack's preferred method for getting rid of his post-nightmare jitters. After a beat, Daniel picked up the remote and clicked on the TV again. The guy with the scarf and his two friends were standing outside a blue telephone box discussing something.

"You seriously watched this stuff?" Jack asked.

"It's classic science fiction," Daniel said.

"You know me and that stuff."

Daniel raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I know you and this stuff."

There was a pause.

"They're showing another one after this. Want to watch it?"

Jack sighed but made no move to confiscate the remote.

***

The tension seemed to radiate off Daniel but Jack lay on his side of the bed and pretended to sleep. It was almost a physical ache, this urge to roll over and hold his lover, but Jack resolutely ignored it. Just getting Daniel to talk about the nightmare had been a big breakthrough. They hadn't spoken about it since that night and Jack was under no illusions that it had changed anything.

He felt Daniel roll over and then the click of the bedside light. In another minute or so Daniel would get out of bed and-

Jack felt a light touch on his shoulder and then Daniel whispered his name.

He gave up feigning sleep and rolled over to look up into Daniel's panicky blue eyes. The archaeologist gave him a shaky smile.

"Hold me?" he asked.

Jack opened his arms and welcomed him in.


End file.
